Showers are becoming more popular, and some people definitely prefer them to taking baths. Yet recent findings have shown that showering can damage your health. Many showerheads being dirty, they spray us with water teeming with bacteria. That may be the reason behind the growing number of lung infections recorded during the last years.
Bacteria-infected showerheads had already been blamed for the spread of several diseases; previous studies name chest infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and pneumonia due to Legionnaire as those that may actually come down on us with the shower water.
The Proceedings of National Academy of Science published an article that states that approximately a third of showerheads house a bug that attacks the respiratory system, Mycobacterium avium, in remarkable quantities.
Getting rivulets of such infected water in your face means that you almost certainly inhale quite a number of bacteria in droplets dirtied by the showerhead. If you are sturdy and healthy, you may just take it in your stride and your body will put down the infection. But in individuals whose immune system is impaired due to age and diseases such as AIDS, in pregnant women it may bring on breathlessness, cough, fatigue and other problems related to lungs.
“If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy,” runs the warning from lead researcher Norman Pace.
Still the study doesn’t call upon you to change your hygiene rituals. Keeping your showerhead clean or purchasing a new one – a meral one would be best – will surely help eliminate the possible danger.
Source of the image: flickr.com/photos/turyddu.
